"Lose yourself in Nature and find Peace!"(Ralph Waldo Emerson)UNITE AGAINST POACHING...What we protect, do not let poachers take it away!Extinction is forever and survival is up to---every last one of us!

Well done Philip. I read that some researchers feel the Albatross has survived for hundreds of thousands of years with low genetic diversity (thus raising the theory that low diversity is a symptom of rather than a cause of species endangerment).

Other species with low genetic diversity include the Koala and Tasmanian Devil. This low diversity is thought to play a role in why both species are susceptible to certain diseases (ie Koalas with chlamydia and Tasmanian Devil facial tumor disease).

"Lose yourself in Nature and find Peace!"(Ralph Waldo Emerson)UNITE AGAINST POACHING...What we protect, do not let poachers take it away!Extinction is forever and survival is up to---every last one of us!

"Lose yourself in Nature and find Peace!"(Ralph Waldo Emerson)UNITE AGAINST POACHING...What we protect, do not let poachers take it away!Extinction is forever and survival is up to---every last one of us!

Coextinction is a reasonably well documented form of extinction, but here's an intersting one. None of us really like ticks but provide an example of another creature that would likely become extinct if we wipded them out through aggressive application of paraciticides?

“ Every year elephants were becoming scarcer and wilder south of the Zambezi, so that it had become impossible to make a living by hunting at all. ” FC Selous 1881

"Lose yourself in Nature and find Peace!"(Ralph Waldo Emerson)UNITE AGAINST POACHING...What we protect, do not let poachers take it away!Extinction is forever and survival is up to---every last one of us!

"Lose yourself in Nature and find Peace!"(Ralph Waldo Emerson)UNITE AGAINST POACHING...What we protect, do not let poachers take it away!Extinction is forever and survival is up to---every last one of us!

TP, I cannot find much on this - the only thing I can think of is that perhaps populations of guinea fowls would suffer as a large portion of their diet consists of ticks. However, they are not completely dependent on tick food.

OWN, I like the way you were thinking, but I was thinking more along the lines of oxpeckers. I read a study a while back that there was a noted decline in oxpecker numbers where the tick population had declined. I figure if we wiped ticks out all together it would probably mean the end of oxpeckers.

I know that they do eat other insects on the animals but their diet is predominantly ticks, so there probably would'nt be sufficient feed to keep them going unless there was a major evolutionary change.

“ Every year elephants were becoming scarcer and wilder south of the Zambezi, so that it had become impossible to make a living by hunting at all. ” FC Selous 1881